‘William Dorsey Swann: From Slavery to ‘The Queen of Drag’, by Kimberly Parry

On the night of January 14, 1887, in Washington DC, the drag queen was born, or at least the concept of the drag queen was revealed to the American public. Prior to this date, her Majesty William Dorsey Swann arranged balls in which men gathered in gowns of satin and silk and sashayed the night away. Such events went on for years, yet the existence of drag balls was only exposed to the American public on the night of January 14th, when the ball was raided by police. According to The Washington Critic, ‘six coloured men’ dressed in ‘female attire’ were arrested as ‘suspicious persons’.

Engaging With The Past – An Antifascist Antidote: Lessons From The German Example, By Jason Lee

In recent years Germany has been presented as the exemplar western liberal democracy. Their recent election saw increased turnout, almost 10% higher than the 2019 UK General Election. Chancellor Merkel’s Conservative CDU/CSU party has led ‘GroKo’ – Grand Coalition governments with the Social Democrats for twelve of the last sixteen years. This coalition between the largest parties is difficult to imagine elsewhere, especially in the UK. Finally, in response to the 2015 Refugee Crisis, Germans accepted over a million refugees, whilst the UK pledged to take 20,000. Thus, it’s easy to assume Germany’s engaged, consensus politics and democratic culture as permanent and inevitable